Luigi Di Maio

The Honourable
Luigi Di Maio
Deputy Prime Minister of Italy
Assumed office
1 June 2018
Serving with Matteo Salvini
Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte
Preceded by Angelino Alfano (2014)
Minister of Economic Development,
Labour and Social Policies
Assumed office
1 June 2018
Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte
Preceded by
Leader of the Five Star Movement
Assumed office
23 September 2017
Preceded by Beppe Grillo
Vice President of the Chamber of Deputies
In office
21 March 2013 – 22 March 2018
President Laura Boldrini
Member of the Chamber of Deputies
Assumed office
15 March 2013
Constituency Campania 1
Personal details
Born (1986-07-06) 6 July 1986
Avellino, Italy
Political party Five Star Movement
Signature

Luigi Di Maio (Italian pronunciation: [luˈiːdʒi di ˈmaːjo]; born 6 July 1986) is an Italian politician serving as Deputy Prime Minister of Italy and Minister of Economic Development, Labour and Social Policies since 1 June 2018. He previously served as Vice President of the Chamber of Deputies in the XVII Italian legislature. He is the leader of the Five Star Movement, an anti-establishment party founded by Beppe Grillo.[1][2]

Early life

Luigi Di Maio was born in Avellino, in 1986; he was the eldest of three brothers. His father Antonio was a small real estate entrepreneur and local councilor for the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement (MSI), while his mother was a teacher of Italian and Latin.[3][4]

Di Maio attended the Liceo classico and then he enrolled at the University of Naples Federico II to study engineering, but subsequently changed to jurisprudence. He was among the founders of student societies at both faculties. Di Maio never graduated from university.[5][6]

In 2007, he was registered as an apprentice journalist, later briefly working as a webmaster and as a steward at the Stadio San Paolo in Naples.[7][8]

Political career

In 2007, Di Maio was among the founders of the political group "Friends of Beppe Grillo", the predecessors of the Five Star Movement (M5S), founded by the popular comedian in October 2009.[9]

In the 2013 election, he was voted into the Chamber of Deputies of the Italian Parliament. On 21 March 2013, he became the youngest Vice President of the Chamber of Deputies.[10][11]

On 12 July 2017, Di Maio was formally investigated for defamation following a complaint filed by Marika Cassimatis, former M5S mayoral candidate in Genoa,[12] while, on 28 July 2017, the journalist Elena Polidori filed a complaint against him also for defamation. Di Maio invoked his parliamentary immunity; he had previously criticized that privilege and pledged never to avail himself of it.[13]

In 2017, Beppe Grillo announced that he would campaign in the 2018 election, but he would not be the candidate for the position of Prime Minister. Di Maio was considered as the front runner and the most likely candidate for the premiership of Italy.[14]

Di Maio had been often labeled as the most pragmatic and "institutional", but also the least populist Five Star politician; he is the son of a member of the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement and he is considered the leader of the moderate and "governmental" faction of the movement.[15][16] No other leading members of the M5S, such as Alessandro Di Battista, a politician and personal friend of Di Maio, or Roberto Fico, leader of the M5S left-wing faction and rival of Di Maio and Di Battista, would run for the office.[17]

Di Maio's opponents were the Senator Elena Fattori (Vice President of the 9th Permanent Senate Committee) and six other city councilors.[18] Many of them were almost unknown and this led to a lot of criticism from the Democratic Party, Lega Nord and Forza Italia,[19] which considered this ballot a false primary election, with the only aim of appointing Di Maio as M5S candidate without any real challenger.[20]

2018 general election

In September 2017 Di Maio was elected Prime Ministerial candidate and Political Head of the M5S, with more than 82% of the vote.[21]

In the 2018 general election, the M5S became the party with the largest number of votes and of parliamentary seats, while the centre-right alliance, in which Matteo Salvini's League emerged as the main political force, won a plurality of seats in the Chamber of Deputies and in the Senate and the centre-left coalition, led by former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, came third.[22] However, no political group or party won an outright majority, resulting in a hung parliament.[23]

On 7 April, Di Maio made an appeal to the PD to "bury the hatchet" and consider a governing coalition with his party. [24]

On 7 May, President Mattarella held a third round of government formation talks, after which he formally confirmed the lack of any possible majority (M5S rejecting an alliance with the whole centre-right coalition, PD rejecting an alliance with both M5S and the centre-right coalition, and the League's Matteo Salvini refusing to start a government with M5S but without Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia party, whose presence in the government was explicitly vetoed by M5S's leader Luigi Di Maio); on the same circumstance, he announced his intention to soon appoint a "neutral government" (irrespective of M5S and League's refusal to support such an option) to take over from the Gentiloni Cabinet which was considered unable to lead Italy into a second consecutive election as it was representing a majority from a past legislature, and offering an early election in July (on what it would be the very first time for a summer general election in Italy) as a realistic option to take into consideration due to the deadlock situation.[25] The Lega and M5S agreed to hold new elections on 8 July, an option that was however rejected by all other parties.[26][27][28]

On 9 May, after a day of rumours surfaced, both Di Maio and Salvini officially requested President Mattarella to give them 24 more hours to strike a government agreement between the two parties.[29] Later the same day, in the evening, Silvio Berlusconi publicly announced Forza Italia would not support a M5S-League government on a vote of confidence, but he would still maintain the centre-right alliance nonetheless, thus opening the doors to a possible majority government between the two parties.[30]

On 13 May, 5 Star Movement and League reached an agreement in principle on a government program, likely clearing the way for the formation of a governing coalition between the two parties, but could not find an agreement regarding the members of a government cabinet, most importantly the prime minister. M5S and League leaders met with Italian President Sergio Mattarella on 14 May to guide the formation of a new government.[31] On their meeting with President Mattarella, both parties asked for an additional week of negotiations to agree on a detailed government program and a prime minister to lead the joint government. Both M5S and the League announced their intention to ask their respective members to vote on the government agreement by the weekend.

Di Maio at the Quirinal Palace in April 2018.

On 21 May 2018, Di Maio and Salvini proposed the private law professor Giuseppe Conte, for the role of Prime Minister in the 2018 Italian government,[32][33][34] despite reports in the Italian press suggesting that President Mattarella still had significant reservations about the direction of the new government.[35] On 23 May 2018, Conte was invited to the Quirinal Palace to receive the presidential mandate to form a new cabinet.[36][37] In the traditional statement after the appointment, Conte said that he would be the “defense lawyer of Italian people”.[38]

However on 27 May, Conte renounced to his office, due to contrasts between Salvini and President Mattarella. In fact, Salvini proposed the university professor Paolo Savona as Minister of Economy and Finances, but Mattarella strongly opposed him, considering Savona too Eurosceptic and anti-German.[39] In his speech after Conte's resignation, Mattarella declared that the two parties wanted to bring Italy out of the Eurozone, and as the guarantor of Italian Constitution and country's interest and stability he could not allow this.[40][41]

On the following day, Mattarella gave Carlo Cottarelli, a former director of the International Monetary Fund, the task of forming a new government.[42] On 28 May 2018, the Democratic Party (PD) announced that it would abstain from voting the confidence to Cottarelli, while the Five Star Movement and the center-right parties Forza Italia (FI), Brothers of Italy (FdI) and the League announced their vote against.[43][44]

Cottarelli was expected to submit his list of ministers for approval to President Mattarella on 29 May. However, on 29 May and 30 May he held only informal consultations with the President, waiting for the formation of a “political government”.[45][46] Meanwhile, Matteo Salvini and Luigi Di Maio announced their willingness to restart the negotiations to form a political government, Giorgia Meloni, leader of FdI, gave her support to the initiative.[45][46][47] On May 31, M5S and the League declared of having reached an agreement about forming a new government, without Paolo Savona as finance minister (he will became minister of European affairs instead), and with Conte at its head.[48][49]

Deputy Prime Minister

Di Maio was sworn in as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economic Development and of Labour and Social Policies on June 1, 2018.

Electoral history

2018 general election (C): Acerra
Candidate Party Votes %
Luigi Di Maio Five Star Movement 95,219 63.4
Vittorio Sgarbi Centre-right coalition 30,596 20.4
Antonio Falcone Centre-left coalition 18,018 12.0
Others 6,315 4.1
Total 150,148 100.0

References

  1. ↑ Italy challenges the postwar order
  2. ↑ Di Maio candidato premier M5S con quasi 31mila voti
  3. ↑ Luigi Di Maio, il padre Antonio e gli operai di Pomigliano: "Stava sempre coi fascisti"
  4. ↑ M5s, i due padri fascisti antesignani del "vaffa": il lessico familiare di Di Maio e Di Battista
  5. ↑ Scalfarotto attacca Di Maio: "Vorrei vedere il suo curriculum, non è nemmeno laureato"
  6. ↑ M5S, conosciamo davvero Luigi Di Maio?
  7. ↑ Manuela Perrone (22 September 2017). "Luigi Di Maio, il più politico del M5S "scala" il Movimento anti-politica". Il Sole 24 Ore. Retrieved 23 November 2017.
  8. ↑ "Di Maio? Ha fatto un solo mestiere: lo steward al San Paolo per vedersi il Napoli gratis"
  9. ↑ "Blog di Beppe Grillo - Stiglitz e Le Liste Civiche". Beppegrillo.it. 15 April 2009. Retrieved 2013-06-18.
  10. ↑ "Di Maio, Luigi - M5S". camera.it. Retrieved 25 February 2014.
  11. ↑ Pino Neri (22 March 2013). "Luigi Di Maio, il ventiseienne napoletano, nuovo vicepresidente della Camera". Il Mattino. Retrieved 25 February 2014.
  12. ↑ Comunarie Genova, Di Maio indagato per diffamazione
  13. ↑ Di Maio non rinuncia all'immunità parlamentare. Il PD attacca il candidato premier grillino
  14. ↑ Aldo Giannuli, storico consigliere di Grillo e Casaleggio: "Primarie bulgare per far vincere Di Maio"
  15. ↑ Cerami, Gabriella (18 September 2017). "Luigi Di Maio e i soliti ignoti" [Di Maio and the usual suspects]. Huffington Post Italia (in Italian). Retrieved 30 May 2018.
  16. ↑ Sannino, Conchita; Vechhio, Conceto (23 June 2017). "M5s, i due padri fascisti antesignani del "vaffa": il lessico familiare di Di Maio e Di Battista" [M5s, the two fascist pioneers of the "goscrews": the family lexicon of Di Maio and Di Battista]. La Repubblica (in Italian). Retrieved 30 May 2018.
  17. ↑ "M5s, no by Fico and Di Battista: 7 premier candidates challenge Di Maio" [M5s, the two fascist pioneers of the "goscrews": the family lexicon of Di Maio and Di Battista]. Giornale di Sicilia. 18 September 2017. Retrieved 30 May 2018.
  18. ↑ M5s, primarie in rete: 8 candidati premier. La senatrice Fattori sfida Di Maio. Rinunciano Fico, Morra e Di Battista
  19. ↑ M5S. Oggi si vota il candidato premier. Sette 'sconosciuti' sfidano Di Maio
  20. ↑ Un nome forte e percentuali bulgare: primarie M5s copiate (male) da Pd e Lega
  21. ↑ M5s, Di Maio eletto candidato premier e nuovo capo politico. Ma alle primarie votano solo in 37 mila
  22. ↑ "Elezioni politiche: vincono M5s e Lega. Crollo del Partito democratico. Centrodestra prima coalizione. Il Carroccio sorpassa Forza Italia". 4 March 2018.
  23. ↑ Sala, Alessandro. "Elezioni 2018: M5S primo partito, nel centrodestra la Lega supera FI".
  24. ↑ http://www.dw.com/en/five-star-movement-m5s-courts-democratic-party-pd-for-italian-coalition/a-43291746 Five Star Movement courts Democratic Party for Italian coalition]
  25. ↑ "Italian president says 'neutral' government should lead until end of year". The Guardian. 7 May 2018. Retrieved 9 May 2018.
  26. ↑ "Staatspräsident erklärt Regierungsbildung für gescheitert". DIE ZEIT. 7 May 2018.
  27. ↑ "Regierungsbildung ist gescheitert – Italien steht vor Neuwahlen". Handelsblatt. 7 May 2018.
  28. ↑ Giorgio, Massimiliano Di. "Italy repeat election looms in July as parties still far apart". U.K. Retrieved 7 May 2018.
  29. ↑ "Italy's populist parties given 24 hours to avert fresh elections". Financial Times. 9 May 2018. Retrieved 9 May 2018.
  30. ↑ "Governo M5S-Lega, Berlusconi: nessun veto all'intesa ma no alla fiducia". Repubblica.it (in Italian). La Repubblica. 9 May 2018. Retrieved 9 May 2018.
  31. ↑ "Italy's populist 5 Star, League parties reach deal on government program". MarketWatch. 13 May 2018.
  32. ↑ "Chi è Giuseppe Conte, scelto da Luigi Di Maio per la possibile squadra di governo". formiche.net (in Italian). 28 February 2018.
  33. ↑ "Italy populist government pact: Candidate for prime minister named". BBC News. 21 May 2018. Retrieved 24 May 2018.
  34. ↑ "Italian president in talks as populist parties put forward novice for PM". The Guardian.
  35. ↑ "Italy's Populists Move Closer to Power, With Little-Known Pick for Prime Minister". The New York Times.
  36. ↑ News, ABC. "The Latest: Premier-designate confirms Italy's place in EU". Retrieved 2 June 2018.
  37. ↑ "Di Battista all'attacco di Mattarella: "Non si opponga agli italiani". La lunga giornata del Colle". 23 May 2018. Retrieved 2 June 2018.
  38. ↑ "Governo, Conte incaricato da Mattarella: "Sarò lʼavvocato difensore degli italiani" - Tgcom24". Retrieved 2 June 2018.
  39. ↑ "Governo, il giorno della rinuncia di Conte. Ecco come è fallita la trattativa su Savona". 27 May 2018. Retrieved 2 June 2018.
  40. ↑ "L'ora più buia di Mattarella: la scelta obbligata di difendere l'interesse nazionale dopo il no dei partiti alla soluzione Giorgetti per l'Economia". 27 May 2018. Retrieved 2 June 2018.
  41. ↑ "Governo, firme e tweet di solidarietà a Mattarella. Ma spuntano anche minacce di morte". 27 May 2018. Retrieved 2 June 2018.
  42. ↑ "Cottarelli accetta l'incarico: "Senza fiducia il Paese al voto dopo agosto"". Repubblica.it (in Italian). 2018-05-28. Retrieved 2018-05-28.
  43. ↑ "Berlusconi: "No alla fiducia e centrodestra unito al voto". Ma Salvini: "Alleanza con Fi? Ci penserò"". Repubblica.it (in Italian). 2018-05-28. Retrieved 2018-05-29.
  44. ↑ "Pd, Martina: "Fiducia a Cottarelli". Renzi: "Salviamo il Paese". E i dem: manifestazione nazionale a Roma il 1° giugno". Repubblica.it (in Italian). 2018-05-28. Retrieved 2018-05-29.
  45. 1 2 Online, Redazione. "Incontro informale in corso tra Cottarelli e MattarellaI tre scenari possibili". Corriere della Sera (in Italian). Retrieved 2018-05-30.
  46. 1 2 "Governo, Cottarelli vede Mattarella. Ora al lavoro alla Camera. Riparte la trattativa giallo-verde". Repubblica.it (in Italian). 2018-05-30. Retrieved 2018-05-30.
  47. ↑ "Di Maio: "Impeachment non più sul tavolo". E si riapre l'ipotesi di un governo Lega-M5s". Repubblica.it (in Italian). 2018-05-29. Retrieved 2018-05-30.
  48. ↑ "Governo, Conte accetta l'incarico e presenta la lista: 18 ministri, 5 le donne. Tria all'Economia". 31 May 2018. Retrieved 2 June 2018.
  49. ↑ "Nasce il governo Conte. Presentata a Mattarella la lista dei ministri. Di Maio e Salvini vicepremier". RaiNews (in Italian). 1 June 2018. Retrieved 1 June 2018.
  • Kiss, Laura (3 February 2014). "Will Passion Save Italy?". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 25 April 2014.
Party political offices
Preceded by
Beppe Grillo		 Leader of the Five Star Movement
2017–present		 Incumbent
Political offices
Preceded by
Angelino Alfano		 Deputy Prime Minister of Italy
2018–present
Served alongside: Matteo Salvini		 Incumbent
Preceded by
Carlo Calenda		 Minister of Economic Development
2018–present
Preceded by
Giuliano Poletti		 Minister of Labour and Social Policies
2018–present
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